The idea of Ridley Scott returning to his origins raised hopes that this would reignite the spark of the young Ridley, the one that promised to become “The John Ford of Science Fiction.” Instead Prometheus is much like every other Ridley Scott film of the last thirty years: looks immaculate but oddly pointless and arbitrary, a job well done but maybe not a job worth doing. Why make an Alien film without an Alien? Prometheus is like a Psycho movie that has the Bates Hotel but no Norman.

The plot is about a mission to the stars to search for our maker. It's a film about wanting to know why we were created that can't satisfactorily provide a reason for its own existence. The film is filled with loose ends and leads that go nowhere. Why did they get Guy Pearce in and bury him under a layer of old man prosthetics that made him resemble Anthony Hopkins playing Young Mr Grace from Are You Being Served? Was it a double bluff, or an idea that got re-written last minute? Is there is a reason why Patrick Wilson appears for a few seconds as Rapace's father? It's less a narrative, more a compendium of rethinks, on-second-thoughts and best-nots.

The result is a moderately intriguing first hour where you are hopeful but always sceptical, which gives way to a last hour of half-hearted mayhem. Some of it does look fantastic, particularly in Imax 3D, but basically it's still eating out off of H.R.Giger's stunning original designs. Stunning, but largely impractical: three decades on the special effects guys still struggle to get the monsters to move convincingly.

This new outing is faithful to the original in that it returns the series to rooting the horror in a fear and disgust of sex. There are numerous acts of forced penetration, enough lecherous tentacles for a Hentai feature and a blood soaked caesarian scene which is way more gruesome and demented than you'd generally expect of a knight of the realm.

You so wanted this to succeed, to be Alien's redemption, but I'm afraid overall it's been rather muffed.